Sample software?

I'm designing and running sound for our improv show on december fifteenth. We need a computer program (mac) that allows us to quickly cue up an effect by just clicking on it. I believe that this can be achieved through some sort of sampling thing... I just know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it. Anything that anybody knows is very helpful. Thanks.

(And, we are hoping to do this without spending money on any hardware. So, machines are out...)

If you just want to do sound simply then get iTunes and rip all of your sounds off of the CD into your library. Then you can just make a playlist with all of them in it and click them as needed. iTunes also lets you cut any of the songs that you have in there down to the right length so you can have them be just the part that you want. You can also have it auto repeat just one track if you need it to do it over and over. iTunes has always worked when I've needed to do sound durring a show.

I'm opening up the PC platform as well- something that will allow us to play a cue with the stroke of a key, for example, or if we rigged a piano and set it up that way. Anything for that? Or that would allow us to see the cues and select them QUICKLY, instantaneously, for an improv show?

I have been doing improv for years at the second city and other places and teching it for a long time as well.

When i do it either we use cds or lately with the advent of i tunes we switched to that. the way to use i tunes effectively is to name your clips in an effciant way and then use the search section to find it quickly for example if you have a dog bark name it dog bark. then when you need a dog bark just type in dog bark in to the search tool and bam you have the sfx you need. this is perfect for the mac or pc user.

but usualy when we did improv shows we didnt use sound effects or music because we had a key board player for the shows.